Friday, October 13, 2006

The mystery thickens

Can anyone tell me the point of today's Page One story in the New York Times about a woman trying to determine if her father may have been involved in the death of a New York man in 1942?

The article recounts at length the fruitless search by a 71-year-old woman for the truth surrounding long-forgotten events in which her late father was among several city contractors charged with graft. After the charges were filed, a young accountant employed by the father's company was killed when a tire burst as he was inflating it. Shortly thereafter, the charges against the father and others were dropped.

Based on sketchy information about these events, the Times reports, "a homemade investigation began, a modern-day Agatha Christie sleuthing for an answer that no one else — no authorities, no family of the deceased bookkeeper — was demanding."

Hundreds of words and a half a page of newsprint later, we learn that the the homemade investigation was inconclusive.

Now, we have two mysteries instead of one. First, is whether foul play was involved in the accountant's death. Second, is how the story got into the Times.

About Me

Alan D. Mutter is perhaps the only CEO in Silicon Valley who knows how to set type one letter at a time.
Mutter began his career as a newspaper columnist and editor at the Chicago Daily News and later rose to City Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. In 1984, he became No. 2 editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.
He left the newspaper business in 1988 to join InterMedia Partners, a start-up that became one of the largest cable-TV companies in the U.S.
Mutter was the COO of InterMedia when he moved to Silicon Valley in 1996 to join the first of the three start-up companies he led as CEO.
The companies he headed were a pioneering Internet service provider and two enterprise-software companies.
Mutter now is a consultant specializing in corporate initiatives and new media ventures involving journalism and technology. He ordinarily does not write about clients or subjects that will affect their interests. In the rare event he does, this will be fully disclosed.
Mutter also is on the adjunct faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.